Characteristics of Xenon Capillary Z-Pinch Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Source Driven by Different dI/dt Discharge Current Pulses

Song, Inho; Iwata, Kazuhiro; Homma, Y.; Mohanty, S. R.; Watanabe, M.; Kawamura, T.; Okino, Akitoshi; Yasuda, Kôichi; Horioka, Kazuhiko; Hotta, Eiki

doi:10.1143/jjap.44.8640

Cited by 11 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Since the reflectivity of multilayer mirror is maximum at 45° incident angle, the mirror was positioned accordingly with respect to the incoming EUV light. The calorimeter was calibrated by JENOPTIK energy monitor [12]. The EUV pinhole camera consisting of a 50 µm diameter pinhole, a Zr filter and an X-ray CCD camera (Andor Technology Ltd. DO434) was used for measuring the dimension of the EUV emitting volume and for evaluating the positional stability of the EUV emitting zone.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These comprise of a high voltage power supply, pulse forming network, spark gap switch, pulse transformer, magnetic switch, capacitor bank etc. The details of the pulse power drivers are described elsewhere [12]. One pulse power diver, named as the slow pulse power driver, delivers a low dI/dt of around 20 A/ns at the load.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because of the complex nature and extreme conditions produced in the EUV plasma sources, several plasma diagnostics are needed to fully characterize these extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) sources. This paper describes the development and employment of some EUV diagnostics at Tokyo Institute of Technology for characterizing the EUV emission from the pulsed plasma systems namely, capillary [12,13] and gas jet Z-pinch [14,15]. The performance of these EUV emitting sources have been investigated in terms of various technological aspects of EUV lithography.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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EUV diagnostics of pulsed plasma systems

Mohanty

Hotta

2010

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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Extreme ultraviolet (EUV) diagnostics have been a subject of continuing interest for last several decades in the field of space and plasma sciences. In recent days, EUV diagnostics are being widely employed in the laboratories and industries to characterize EUV emission from the EM radiation sources that have strong impacts on future technology. This paper gives description of some of the important EUV diagnostics such as EUV photon detector, EUV energy measurement system, EUV pinhole camera, grazing incidence spectrograph and transmission grating spectrograph employed at Tokyo Institute of Technology to characterize EUV emission from the low current (<15 kA) and low energy (~ ten of Joule) pulsed plasma systems and some typical results.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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EUV diagnostics of pulsed plasma systems

Mohanty

Hotta

2010

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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“…[7][8][9][10] In such systems, stray inductance of the load, including a high voltage gap switch and a plasma load, should be kept low in order to obtain higher peak current with shorter pulse width. 13 In order to decrease the inductance of the load, several attractive schemes have been developed such as a laser trigger gap switch with multidischarge channel. In addition, to realize the recombination soft x-ray laser at shorter wavelength, rapid current decay is required to cool down the nonequilibrium pinched plasma within a few tens of nanoseconds.…”

Section: Pulsed Current Wave Shaping With a Transmission Line By Utilmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pulsed current wave shaping with a transmission line by utilizing superposition of a forward and a backward voltage wave for fast capillary Z-pinch discharge

Sakai

Takahashi

Watanabe

et al. 2010

Review of Scientific Instruments

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By using a water transmission line, current wave shaping was demonstrated for a fast capillary Z-pinch discharge recombination soft x-ray laser study. The pulsed power system consists of a water capacitor, a gap switch, a transmission line, and a capillary plasma load. A voltage wave initiated at the water capacitor propagates toward the capillary load through the transmission line. Control of the pulse delay that occurred in the transmission line provides the superposition of the forward and the backward voltage waves effectively in order to perform current wave shaping with higher current amplitude and rapid current decay.

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“…This thermal loss is minimized to a larger extent by the use of a fast rising current pulse. It has also been reported that higher dI/dt gives rise to better plasma conditions leading to higher EUV emission from z-pinch plasma [31]. The life of the capillary is also enhanced due to its limited wall ablation if the current is fast.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Effect of the rate of rise in discharge current on the output of a 46.9-nm soft X-ray laser based on capillary discharge

et al. 2016

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fast capillary discharge scheme, which has been demonstrated by several groups worldwide [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. This is based on collisional excitation pumping through a fast heating of the plasma. Such a soft X-ray laser has several applications in different areas of science and technology [16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. In fact, there exists a strong interest in extending the lasing wavelength toward shorter side. It is worth mentioning here that directed EUV emission has also been reported from discharge plasma at shorter wavelengths ranging from 12 to 16 nm [23]. Efforts are presently going on in this direction in various laboratories worldwide to demonstrate X-ray lasing at a wavelength of 13.4 nm in nitrogen z-pinch plasma using a capillary discharge system [24][25][26][27]. Unlike the 46.9-nm X-ray laser, this is based on recombination pumping scheme which requires fast heating of the plasma followed by fast cooling of the hot plasma. Whether it is collisional excitation pumping scheme or recombination pumping scheme, both require faster pumping of the plasma to achieve population inversion, which can be done using a fast current pulse having high rate of rise (dI/dt) to excite the plasma.The generation of X-ray laser through the fast capillary discharge scheme is based on passing a fast rising electrical current through a pre-ionized gas column in a ceramic capillary. The magnetic field generated by the discharge current exerts strong magnetic force acting radially inwards on the plasma column. As a result, the plasma column gets pinched to a highly ionized hot and dense column, which may have sufficient population of required ionization state for lasing under suitable conditions. With argon gas filled inside the capillary, Ar 8+ ions are the lasing species and collectively form the gain medium for X-ray laser at 46.9 nm. Collisional electron excitation of these ions creates population inversion between 3p 1 S 0 and 3s 1 P 1 energy levels, which leads to soft X-ray lasing at 46.9 nm Abstract The rate of rise in discharge current (dI/dt) is an important parameter in an X-ray laser pumped by fast capillary discharge. The effect of this parameter on the energy of an argon plasma-based 46.9-nm soft X-ray laser pulse has been experimentally studied. It was found that an X-ray laser pulse with ~2 μJ energy, which can be obtained at a discharge current of ~40 kA with dI/dt value of ~7.1 × 10 11 A/s, can also be obtained at a much lower peak current of ~26 kA if the quarter period (T/4) of the discharge current is made shorter to achieve a comparable dI/dt value. For a fixed T/4, the laser energy could be enhanced from 2 to 4 μJ for an increase in the dI/dt value from 7.1 × 10 11 to 1.3 × 10 12 A/s by increasing the peak current from 26 to 44 kA. It was also observed that for a fixed dI/dt, mere increase in the discharge current does not increase the laser energy.

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Characteristics of Xenon Capillary Z-Pinch Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography Source Driven by Different dI/dt Discharge Current Pulses

Cited by 11 publications

References 16 publications

EUV diagnostics of pulsed plasma systems

EUV diagnostics of pulsed plasma systems

Pulsed current wave shaping with a transmission line by utilizing superposition of a forward and a backward voltage wave for fast capillary Z-pinch discharge

Effect of the rate of rise in discharge current on the output of a 46.9-nm soft X-ray laser based on capillary discharge

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